January 15, 2017

U.S. Moving toward Nazism?

During his press conference last week, Donald Trump (DT) referred to himself as a victim, like six million murdered Jews, of Nazi-like tactics. His whining came from a leak describing about his alleged compromising behavior that may have given the Russians control over his actions. DT said:

“I think [the leak is] a disgrace…, and that’s something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do.”

That was before Marine Le Pen, France’s far-right National Front leader and advocate of ethnically cleansing France of Muslim immigrants, visited Trump Tower. DT’s team said that they didn’t meet with her, but they have also said that people should pay attention to “comes out of his mouth.”

DT is right about a similarity to the Nazi movement, but the behavior is coming from himself and the other Republicans as they oppose everyone except white male Christians. An example is their opposition to Planned Parenthood. For example, the GOP Congress has a prime goal to remove the $500 in federal funds from payments and grants, about 40 percent of PP’s budget in providing annual health checkups, screenings for diseases, and contraceptives for about 2.5 million people.

Alfred Rosenberg, a chief Nazi ideologue, said:

“The emancipation of women from the women’s emancipation movement is the first demand of a female generation trying to rescue nation and race, the eternally unconscious, the foundation of all civilization, from decline…. [O]ne thing must be made clear: Only a man must be and remain judge, soldier, and politician.”

Concerning same-gender rights, the Nazis extended Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code:

“Unnatural vice committed by two persons of the male sex or by people with animals is to be punished by imprisonment; the verdict may also include the loss of civil rights.”

Nazi ideology was based on their belief that gay men lowered the German birth rate; endangered, recruited, enticed, and corrupted youth; are “potential oppositionists” and enemies of respectable society; and bring the “decline of social community.” Nazis complained that gay men couldn’t fight in the war because, according to Gestapo head Heinrich Himmler, they were “like women.”

Lesbians weren’t rejected in Nazi Germany because Nazis expected that “Aryan” lesbians could produce children for them. A Nazi focus was on procreation of the “white race,” perhaps a reason that the GOP wants to prevent contraception for women.

Himmler ran surveillance operations on 90,000 men he suspected to being homosexual, arrested 50,000 of them, and sent 15,000 to concentration camps where most of them didn’t survive. His national file included not only gay men but also transgender people and “wage abortionists” (women who had abortions and the doctors who performed them). In 1938 alone, the Nazis arrested 28,366 people for abortions and 28,882 for homosexuality.

Hitler also wanted to eliminate all sex education in public schools. The goal of all this control was to control minds through controlling people’s bodies. In the world of male domination, “othered” bodies such as female, LGBT, and disabled people matter less in reproducing and maintaining the dominant patriarchal system. Non-European-heritage people also fit into the “othered” classification because they are inferior to “white” bodies.

DT has promised to sign proposed religious exemption laws to discriminate against LGBT people, including allowing federal employees to refuse the processing of benefits and claims if they object. The danger is exacerbated by potential power of VP-elect Mike Pence who declares himself “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” While governor of Indiana, Pence signed a law, similar to the one proposed for the entire nation, that legalized discrimination against same-gender couples. He did so in the company of the state’s Christian Right leadership, showing himself as one of the movement’s leaders.

A co-sponsor of the “religious” discrimination law, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), is also the nominee for U.S. Attorney General and would be in charge of the nation’s maintenance of law if he were confirmed. A headline for HuffPo read, “Pick Any LGBTQ Rights Issue. Jeff Sessions Has Voted Against It.”

Another supporter of the “religious” law against LGBT people as well as co-sponsor of a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-gender marriage is Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Members of DT’s hand-picked transition team such as Ken Blackwell, Ken Klukowski, and Ed Meese agree with this position.

In his Senate hearing as nominee for Secretary of HUD, Ben Carson, also a Christian Right leader, opposed “special rights” for LGBT people who he identified with polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality. Betsy DeVos, nominee for Secretary of Education who wants to eliminate public education, is a wealthy contributor to Christian Right projects.

Another Nazi position was to control the press. This restriction on the “fourth estate” in the United States was evident at DT’s recent press conference when he shouted down a reporter asking a question before his press secretary told the reporter that he could be banned if he dared ask a question.

A strong supporter for DT following his treatment of the journalist is Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who said, “Mr. Trump put the reporter of that media group in his place there.” Turkey is 149th out of 180 countries in press freedom, and the country, where journalists face violence, intimidation, and harassment, has controlled journalism through strict laws.

The only people not targeted for extreme hate in DT’s regime are white Christians, and his campaign was anti-Semitic. DT’s senior advisor for the White House is a white supremacist who has been compared by Europeans to Hitler’s senior advisor and propaganda chief Josef Goebbels. Jewish people are being targeted throughout the United States with swastikas painted on their property.

Trump supporters planned an armed protest against “Jews, Jewish businesses, and anyone who supports them” in Whitefish (MT) tomorrow, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Their “news site” of the Daily Stormer was the first to endorse Trump; the official KKK was the second. Both want to make American white and Christian. The march has been postponed because of an “incomplete permit,” but they haven’t given up their plans.

DT may also model his policies after Russia that has identified an “othered” class by its vote last week to decriminalize domestic violence. Abusers wouldn’t face criminal charges although they might have to pay a fine or do some community service. If the victim is not hospitalized or forced to take a leave of absence from work, the Russian punishment for assault would be determined “administrative.” The vote was 368 in favor, one opposed, and one abstaining. Yelena Mizulina, known for her anti-LGBT propaganda law, crafted the domestic abuse bill.

Domestic violence laws have not existed in Russia, and Russian law doesn’t permit restraining orders from domestic abuse victims. The Russian Supreme Court has declared that people causing intrafamily violence can be criminally charged, but this bill becoming law would change that ruling. Another problem with the bill is that corporal punishment for children is popular in Russia. Mizulina said that “the law should support that family tradition” of “the authority of the parents’ power.” Women, covered under the proposed law, are victims in three-fourths of the domestic violence, and almost 40 Russian women die from their husbands’ attacks every day—frequently from alcoholism.

DT has committed domestic abuse as has at least one of his Cabinet nominees.

Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps said:

“There is the assumption that by bullying corporations, such as Ford, and stepping into aid other corporations, such as Google, the Trump administration can achieve various objectives that will widely boost output and employment. But this is an expansion of corporatist policy of a kind not previously seen since the German and Italian economies of the 1930s.”

Although progressives have struggled to keep away from comparisons between the GOP and the Nazi government, the far-right movement of Republicans has gone close to the edge in their opposition to legalization of abortion, equal pay for equal work, marriage equality, transgender people’s access to public facilities, LGBT military inclusion, other LGBT rights, and many other restrictions on the people in the United States.

Looking at the Nazi government leading up to World War II has lessons for the future on the results of anti-feminist, anti-women’s equality, anti-women’s reproductive freedoms (anti-family planning, anti-contraception, anti-abortion), anti-lesbian, anti-gay, anti-bisexual, anti-transgender, anti-gender nonconforming, anti-sexuality education in schools. As DT’s childish tantrums continue, it becomes more and more difficult to avoid the comparisons, especially when he compares his own intelligence agencies to Nazis.

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Hi Nel, Would it be ok if I post this to my facebook page? Many of our progressive friends believe what is happening but I just would like some of the others on my page to read this. Not sure if they will but ya gotta try right?! Thanks Nel